Project Management Learning: A Comparative Study between Engineering Students’ Experiences in South Africa and the United Kingdom

Abstract

■This study explores how engineering students studying project management perceive their learning experiences. To facilitate an understanding of the constituent components of engineering students' experiences and to understand how these experiences influence preferred learning styles, a comparative study of university students studying engineering in South Africa and the United Kingdom is conducted. The study finds no significant demographic differences in learning experiences across the two student cohorts. However, the South African cohort reports higher levels of overall experiences. They also report higher usage of online learning materials but lower levels of blended learning and individual critical evaluation skills experiences.

Competencies Required of Engineering Students Conducting International Projects

“…This finding confirms with Brière et al's (2015) research, which ranked project management skills such as meeting deadlines and budgets as equally important to technical competency. The finding agrees with Ojiako et al (2015) who state that learning approaches of students were more dependent on context-specific factors than on natural culture differences, reporting that the perceived strategic importance of engineering as a profession to South African students seems to have a positive and encouraging impact on their overall learning experiences. The third diamond in the flowchart highlights the importance of cross-cultural communication skills.…”

Traceability of Intra- and Interpersonal Skills: From Education to Labor Market

“…In fact, both DeSeCo in the preuniversity stage (defining projects and setting goals) and Tuning in the university stage (designing and managing projects) include projects in all students' curricula. For Ojiako et al [46,47], to learn properly about social and behavioral skills is critical in order to complete the role transformation from technicians to managers. Azim et al advice that project managers and senior executives have to realize the significance of managing people [43].…”

The Value of Project Management Education for IT Professionals

“…The teaching and learning of project management have attracted the attention of many scholars within project management professional training [8]. This is especially true in the case of IT projects.…”

“…Ojiako et al [8] in their research on how engineering students perceive their learning experiences of project management found that the focus for learning should be on the student as a manager rather than a 'technician'. In such a role as manager, engineers would be expected to "grasp the complexity and fluidity associated with the range of interconnected social, technical, political, and economic factors that commonly matter within work packages and projects" [8 :57].…”

“…What is important is to introduce engineering students, and also IT students, to the complexities associated with projects. However there is a difficulty in achieving this due to the educational delivery of courses being narrowly compartmentalised and linked rigidly to learning outcomes [8].…”